2009/07/08

A deadly ethnic clash occurred on July 5th in Xinjiang, China, between Uyghurs and Han Chinese when the Chinese government launched an armed suppression against originally peaceful protest, resulting in 156 deaths (according to the China government).

The tension between Uyghurs and Hans have been high for decades. The trigger of the current protest is another ethnic clash occurred earlier far away in Guangdong, where a rumor is posted about six Xinjiang guys raped a girl ('No Rapes' in Riot Town),

Authorities in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong have said they found no evidence that ethnic minority Uyghur laborers had raped two Chinese girls, a rumor they blamed for last week's ethnic fighting at a toy factory in Shaoguan city.

According to official media reports, police also detained a former worker at the city's Xuri toy factory for posting the rumor on the Internet in the first place.

"Six Xinjiang boys raped two innocent girls at the Xuri Toy Factory," ran the text of the posting, the official Xinhua news agency reported, quoting a Shaoguan municipal spokesman.

Outraged by what the post says, the Chinese in Guangdong started a deadly ethnic cleansing against Uyghurs in a toy factory in Shaoguan city, Guangdong. The following horrifying video is apparently shot by Chinese witnesses inside the factory. It was posted on Sohu.com, taken down, and republished several times. Take a look on how hundred of enraged Chinese beat several unarmed Uyghurs to death:

The horrifying scene shows that several people running for life through an narrow passage, chased by people holding sticks of unidentifiable materials. They eventually took their last breaths after being beaten repeatedly by the angry crowd.

Starting from 1'30", you can hear those who shot the video commented in Chinese:

"還不死啊？我肏！""How come is he/she not dead yet? Fuck!"

"才怪！""Weird if he/she isn't dead."

"這個是女的吧？""Is that one a female?"

Following the question, the camera points to a scene where 8~9 people holding sticks and hammering down on a non-responsive person. A lifeless body left on the ground when the crowd dispersed.

The narrow passage where the killings occurred is between two tall buildings that look like apartments. It appears that residents of both buildings stood in their balconies watching the killings, making uproars, shooting the video as though they were watching a gladiator killing show in ancient Rome, when unarmed people in the passage run for their lives. A vivid demonstration of what the term "terrorism" defines.

Remember that the Rome was not built in one day. Neither is the tension between Uyghurs and Han Chinese. It started in 1949 with China's invasion to occupy the East Turkestan, followed by decades of systematic suppression of Uyghur culture and history by the China government. The language, building, books of Uyghur origin are systematically destroyed. Millions of Han Chinese were forced by the government to migrate into Xinjiang, resulting in effective dilution of Uyghur population in the area, the exact same way the Chinese government applied to dilute Tibetans in Tibet!

The Chinese government took a completely new and refined approach in terms of the media control to define the incident as nothing but a riot initiated by Uyghurs. They (1) announced the news and revealed the photo and footages before the news has a chance to spread; (2) block all internet connections in/out of the area; (3) had press conference and allowed journalists to visit in confined and well guarded places. It seems that the only thing not new is to blame it on the victim group.

and listen to the desperate call by Alim Seytoff, spokesperson for the World Uyghur Congress, Vice-President of Uyghur-American Association and director of the Uyghur Human Rights Project, in a radio interview (Tune in: Online radio show on Uighur unrest in China);

Uyghur leader in exile, Rebiya Kadeer, who is seen by some as the Dalai Lama of Uyghur, also the one the China government blames this incident to, speaks out:

Check out Al Jazeera, a prominent Muslim news media. Some of their coverages on Uyghur:

The bloody suppression by the China government invites condemnations from the international community, which certainly doesn't include Ma Ying-jeou's regime that considers Taiwan is just a part of China.

The ethnic clash also triggers retaliation of Han Chinese. As this report from the Liberty Time (漢、維再爆衝突 新疆緊繃) indicates, Han Chinese in China go on the street seeking Uyghurs to beat.

From what is known, I believe larger scale and more widely spread retaliations from both sides are likely to happen, or probably already happened but covered under the tightly information control of China government.

A lot more information is available on the net. I would like to end this article with this:

What is happening now in Xinjiang happened before in Taiwan in the 228 massacre back in 1947 when many Taiwanese were killed by the occupying Chinese Nationalist (KMT), and is happening now in Tibet by the occupying Chinese Communist Party. The similarities are:

1) Chinese forces invade and take over the land;2) Chinese forces make use of the resources, squeeze the locals to the brim of famine and death; 4) Local cultures were systematically annihilated;5) Locals will either be dead anyway, or live like animals, so the revolution is their only way out; 6) Massacre by the Chinese follows, at the same time blaming the victims;7) Massive government-forced migration of Han Chinese into the locals to dilute the population of local ethic population. This is the only feature that hasn't happened in Taiwan. Yet.

This process has happened before, is happening now, and will continue to happen in the future. Observing how the current Ma Ying-jeou Regime annexes Taiwan to China, it's very likely that Taiwan will experience it the 2nd time in a short span of less than a hundred years. With that, Taiwan will make another mark in human history -- following the mark of peaceful democracy progress Taiwan had earned -- as the first country to rush herself into the slavery via the path of democracy.